


Triggers

by gala_apples



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Crushes, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:43:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: It's funny, Gavin thinks, how people totally tangential to his life can affect some of the things most important to him.orFive times Youtube personalities triggered Gavin to take his relationships to the next level.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always with RPF, I have 100% made up any family dynamics. I don't know Gavin and Geoff and Ryan's family makeups, and I don't want to know.
> 
> All the Youtubers I mention are real channels, and some of them even have fandoms. They're not tagged though, as this story is from AH POV, and it doesn't seem fair to rope people in like that.

One: Critical Role

The first thing Gavin does after third period is go to his locker for his lunch. He doesn’t always paperbag it. Sometimes he wants a piping hot slice of grease-laden pizza, and it’s worth scrounging for change. Usually speaking though, as the oldest of four kids, he’s supposed to set a good example and take the brown paper bag given to him without complaint. Honestly, he’s probably lucky that Mom doesn’t try to press any sort of environmentalism on him, and demand he use a cute little insulated lunch kit, rather than a bag he can crumple and throw into the nearest trash can. His friends would no doubt have a thousand comments about it.

That is, if they still bloody talked to him at lunch time. 

Things used to be better. Last year everyone generally met up in the cafeteria. Or, if that was too cramped, Mr Gilmoore’s law class was a great back up. Mr Gilmoore’s a chill dude, the kind of adult every teenager needs. He never cared what raunchy conversations ended up taking place, as long as they left the room the way they entered it. And he’s still a teacher here, Gavin would like to point out. It’s just no one cares anymore. They’ve developed a _hobby_.

Backpack slung over his back so he doesn’t have to revisit his locker before fourth period, paper bag in hand, Gavin delivers himself to Mrs Zhou’s classroom. Judging based on the corny pro-literacy posters, the same recycled pap you’d see anywhere, you’d never guess between eleven forty five and twelve forty five the room is a den of murder, seduction, and adventure. Or at least, that’s what half his friends have decided they believe. Personally, Gavin doesn’t have much interest in the above. Not when it’s all nonsense storytelling.

The room is so loud it’s almost blurry. A mixed metaphor, but fitting when there are at least forty people in the room, and every single one of them is talking. They’ve taken to stealing stools from the biology classroom down the hall, so everyone who’s interested can have a place to sit. Why that’s easier than doing this in more than one room, Gavin doesn’t know. All he does know is that he has to push through the wall of sound -and maybe trip on a few backpacks on his way- to get to the corner of the class, where he can see Michael and Geoff and Ryan.

Unfortunately for Gavin, Luke and Corrie are both sitting with his friends. Gavin’s gotten to know their faces intimately. That doesn’t mean he’s gotten to know _them_ or anything. If Gavin arrives to a quintet, not a trio, they’re busy. Michael’s busy being a half-orc barbarian, Geoff’s busy being an bard, Ryan’s a sorcerer with primarily fire based attacks, and from what Gavin can tell, Luke’s a klepto human who’s got himself all sorts of premade magical goodies. He doesn’t dare ask though, in case Luke confuses vague curiosity with intense interest and tries to convert him. After almost a month of Geoff and Ryan doing the same Gavin’s running low on polite ways to say ‘no thanks, not interested’. 

It’s been a long September, trying to get used to the baseline choice of ‘tedious shit with best friends’ or ‘fun conversation with secondary acquaintances’. Gavin blames Matthew, Liam, and Ashley J. Those fucks must have gotten up to something during the summer, because posters were taped up in every hallway by the end of the first day back, advertising for a DnD club. The first few meetings were a mess, more and more geeky students showing up and trying to enter the campaign, until finally Matthew put his foot down and organised everyone into separate groups. For some reason Gavin wasn’t really listening to, five to six person groups are best.

Gavin sits on the chair one of them saved for him. With nothing better to do, he cracks open his container of grapes and watches. It’s not like he can really talk to anyone. They’re busy in some kind of tavern, or so Corrie says. It’s not his place to interrupt and fuck up the flow of the game. Thinking he’s more important than his friends is something his father would do, which makes the concept instantly revolting.

It’s cute, anyway, how much they care. Or, at least, Gavin swings back and forth between cute and annoying, and viewing it as cute makes it easier to withstand a full hour of it. 

The first sign that this was going to be a big deal was the struggle to name their sub group. Apparently the originators of the club went with Critical Role, and Geoff was going to be on par or throw himself off a bridge. Gavin was involved in a few texting chains about possible names for their group, despite not caring in the least. Eventually Heroes & Halfwits was chosen, to the benefit of absolutely nothing, as far as Gavin can see. A title doesn’t make them play any differently, or get treated differently. Matthew’s group is still the only group that gets spectators, outside of Gavin sitting with his friends. But a name makes them happy, so good for them.

The second sign was the sort of line drawn in the sand. Nothing verbal about it, but Michael and Ryan and Geoff went from attendance once a week to three times, to all five weekday lunches, and being genuinely pissed off when other friends suggest they come hang out away from the stupid roleplaying shit. Given the choice of large friends group or DnD, the choice of Risinger and Chad and Burnie or setting a dragon on fire with mystical flame, they’ve come down firmly on the side of game playing.

The third and currently most prominent sign that Michael and Geoff and Ryan care maybe just a bit too much is what they look like at the moment. Everyone in H&H is in half dress, wearing easily removable props. Gavin supposes it could be worse. They could be wearing makeup to make themselves look like fantasy characters. Or they could be full out cosplaying, down to special trousers and shoes, instead of just Geoff’s pan flute on a chain around his neck, or Ryan’s carefully charred wrist warmers. Still though. Costumes. Not only did they each brainstorm something to wear, they make the conscious choice every day to take the item out of their locker and put it on.

What it comes down to, in the end, is that Gavin’s going to pick DnD club a hundred times over, no matter how completely boring and awful it is. He’s going to drink his Redbull, eat his club sandwich, and dick around on his phone, and maybe even do some homework early, if things get dire, but he’s going to stay. Because DnD club is where his dorky best friends are. More than that, DnD club is where Geoff and Ryan are. In the history of mankind, people have done a lot worse than attend a boring club to get closer to the person who gives them a raging boner. 

Not that they know that’s his reason for staying. Unless they do? Crushes are complicated. It’s always hard to tell if you’re being obvious or not, if you’re picking up signs that it’s reciprocated, or you’re hallucinating. Gavin’s can’t even decide what the worst case scenario is; them both politely ignoring his feelings because they don’t feel anything, the returnee of affection’s relationship style being so different that his flirting is going over Gavin’s head thus dooming a relationship before it can even begin, or them both reciprocating and having to pick one to be his boyfriend.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter who loves who. What matters is playing Crossy Road so he doesn’t blow his brains out in the lulls between the positive stimuli of Geoff or Ryan laughing. God bless growing up in this generation of more apps than one person could go through in a lifetime.

Two: WatchMojo

“Did you see the thing this morning?” Michael asks.

“Uh, no?” Gavin has no idea what Michael's talking about, so it's safe to presume it's not something he's stumbled upon. Geoff doesn’t even reply to Michael, focused on speed reading the two chapters he needs to finish for Honours English.

Instead of angling his phone towards Gavin so he can see the clip or whatever, Michael dicks around for a minute, then says “sent!”

Reluctantly Gavin pulls out his cell. Being texting buddies with Michael is a human version of Reddit's 50/50. Sometimes it's hilarious, new memes or Russian dashcam footage. Other times it's the most gross, perverted, fucked up shit the dark side of the internet has to offer.

Gavin clicks open the link Michael has texted him. It’s to a Tumblr post. A text post, specifically. At first glance Gavin’s not concerned. It’s a post from Mojo, who’s an anonymous individual -or group, possibly- at John Colver. He, she, they, whatever, like to write top ten lists of whatever comes to mind. Gavin doesn’t follow the account, doesn’t even have a Tumblr account, but he hears the posts read out loud sometimes, or a friend will demand he read a specific one. Mojo’s lists really resonate with people. 

Skimming the list though, Gavin’s heartbeat rapidly ratchets up and up, until he feels like he might pass out. It’s going to be the hardest thing in the world to open his mouth and reply evenly, but he must. He questions daily, hourly, sometimes every minute as to whether or not Ryan and Geoff know how he feels, but he’s certain no one else does. He can’t give off the wrong reaction and out himself to Michael, never mind anyone in the hall looking at him.

“What in the christ is this?”

It’s not like the old days, the Jawbreaker, 90’s teen drama cliche, where an incriminating print out is taped to the high school walls every five feet. It doesn’t need to be. This is a Tumblr account. This post has been reblogged, Noted, and linked to. Way more times than there are students at JCHS, which means a bunch of people online have mistaken it for some kind of fandom post. Fuck only knows how far it’ll go. Gavin has no control over if he’s about to be a meme. It sucks. 

“This is Mojo thinking that you two should suck each other’s dicks in the parking lot,” Michael snickers.

“Cool, great, cool, great, cool, now can you both shut up so I don’t get fucked in the dick for my pop quiz?” Geoff asks without looking up from his ratty paperback.

The hell of it is, it’s not like Mojo is _wrong_. At least not about the first point on their list.

1: Geoff Ramsey is a rebel teenager. I don’t think there’s much question about that, unless you’re literally blind, and can’t see the outfits, and also deaf, and can’t hear the Fuck-America activism he pipes through every classroom conversation. Meanwhile, Gavin Free can be found hanging on to his every word, as well as noticeably checking out his jacket, his Docs, and his tattoos. Constantly. I don’t want to say he’s the sweet little Sandra Dee to his Danny Zuko, there’s a bunch of gender role bullshit I’m not subscribing to all up in that. I’m just saying if one day Gavin comes to school in skin tight leather, with a haircut and a joint in hand, I would not look away. 

The second part of the ogling has nothing to do with his crush. Gavin likes shoes. Aesthetically speaking, not kinkwise. He’s checked out every pair of boots, sneakers, high heels, and sandals that any student has worn this year. The first part of the ogling isn’t too risque either. Geoff can pull off a great denim jacket defaced with patches and rips and Sharpie notations. Gavin thinks he’s super hot in it. That said, he appreciates a good outfit in general. He also checks out any time Michael’s got a new beanie on, and he’s only gotten a boner over Michael like three or four times.

The third part of the ogling, though. More than anything Gavin loves Geoff’s tattoos. The one on his inner arm is legit, a real tattoo from an actual artist, a person who obviously gets paid to create ink artwork. But then there's the others. Geoff came back from family vacation to Alabama this summer with still somewhat inflamed tattoos on each of his knuckles. According to Geoff, a few of his cousins won their shared bid for a tattoo gun at auction the first night they were in ‘Bama, and everyone spent the next two weeks getting drunk and making permanent marks on each other. They should be hideous, those tacky simplistic sketches of 1940’s army bullshit. One of them, the arrow, is just a straight line with a triangle at the end. And yet Gavin fucking loves them. 

“I should sue! Defamation, or whatever it’s bloody called!”

“Chill out, Gavvers. Everyone’s gonna read it, but nobody actually cares.”

“If I literally suck your dick right now, would you SHUT THE FUCK UP?” Geoff starts quietly, and ends in a bellow.

“That wouldn’t work, Geoffry. How would you read your chapter if you were gargling on my knob?” Because Gavin has to joke about this. If someone accused him of being gay with Miles or Gus Gavin would make dumb jokes about it, so Geoff can’t be any different.

“You’d read it out loud as I blew you, idiot.”

“I read my chapter last night, but I’m the idiot. Right.”

Geoff silently reaches out and punches him in the thigh. Gavin decides it’s a good time to follow Michael to his locker and leave Geoff where he’s sitting on the floor under the bulletin board. 

By the time he’s getting dropped off at home by Lindsay, Michael and Barb still in the car because he lives much closer to the school, Gavin’s read through the whole list. Once or twice. A few times. Whenever he can get his phone out without getting caught. Enough times to have the ten reasons he’s destined to be with Geoff memorised. Whatever. 

Gavin goes directly to his room. No different from any other day, except that he bypasses a snack today. He’s more interested in taking his pants and undies off. Gabin tosses them both into his laundry hamper, and after double checking that his door is locked, throws himself onto his bed. Mojo’s second reason was _with tattoos like those you want to lick them all over_ , and Gavin really does. He imagines a scenario where Geoff's displayed in, what are they called? Spreader bars? Three of them. One pushing his wrists apart, bar behind his neck. A short one with wide cuffs around his thighs, forcing him open, and lastly, one keeping his ankles apart. This Geoff is only a few years older but he has dozens more tattoos, like he spent a full semester’s tuition on it. In his fantasy, Gavin starts biting his way around Geoff’s body, leaving a hickey on each tattoo. Gavin's hand jerks faster as he imagines sucking his dick, in this world with no consequences and definitely no gag reflex.

4: Geoff looks like a hot pirate, all long and lanky with skulls and a 5-o’clock shadow. Ever since Pirates of the Caribbean got tainted, I've needed a new Sexy Pirate fix. Rip Gavin's grey shirt a few times, muss his hair, and watch them start to plunder booty, am I right?

The stupid list flashes through his mind, the part with Geoff being a better Jack Sparrow. Gavin imagines himself on the slick wet wood of a ship at sea. There's a rich smell to everything, the brine of saltwater and the heady bleachy scent of precome. Geoff's underneath him, in a jacket with tails. It's a thrift store costume party level of detail to the outfit, but Gavin doesn't need more. Second mate Gavin's going to make Captain Ramsey come in his worn out and patched trousers.

Unless he comes first, that is. Gavin bites his lip, imagines it’s Geoff with gauged ears and a tricorne doing it, and shoots into his hand. 

Gavin takes a moment to chug some water -bottled water that he buys with part of his allowance, because no one else in the family can taste the difference between bottled and tap- and catch his breath a little. He doesn’t really want to calm down yet, he’s not finished this session. He just needs to have gained enough dexterity to pick up the slimy container and squirt more lube on his palm. Jerking off with a partially dry hand, dry enough to be tacky, hurts more than it helps. But once he’s lubed up he's right back to it, this time fantasizing about Ryan.

If Geoff is a pirate, Ryan is a faerie. He looks like he could live in an ice kingdom, all blue and white glitter frost, wings beautiful arrows of feathers. Gavin would strip Ryan’s white toga off, grateful to be allowed to graze his skin with his fingertips. Gavin would kneel in the snow in front of the whole court and start sucking his dick. Gavin's mouth would go slack to give Ryan room. He’d have to, because of course Ryan’s cock is enormous, as suits a man of his stature. Gavin’s own is nothing to be ashamed of, but he can’t imagine Ryan’s is anything but a feast. 

When lovely Ryan with the perfect cheekbones starts fucking his mouth with little care, Gavin only opens wider. In this scene he’ll happily get facefucked with dozens of sentinent beings watching, Ryan’s fingers tight in his hair, forcing a certain rhythm. He wants cruel faerie Ryan to fuck him, with no regard, but even wanting that is too much agency for the king of the court to accept, and Ryan will only drive his beautiful cock into Gavin’s throat. 

Ryan loses control when he comes, covering everything around him in white spiderweb crackfrost. Gavin is dismissed, hard and desperate and wanting, told in words that sound like more than English to consider himself lucky he gets to go back to the human world. He finds himself back in the grove he accidentally wandered into, circle of mushrooms nowhere to be seen, and drops his pants to come against the bark, thinking of the glory of what he’s just seen.

Gavin comes a second time and reaches for another handful of tissues. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? No matter how many pros can be written up for why he should get with Geoff, Gavin will always hesitate. Ryan Haywood exists, just as good an option as Geoff, for a whole host of other reasons. Every time Gavin gets off to Geoff, or even just enjoys his existence, he has to react to Ryan too. He’ll never be able to go one way or the other. He’ll die alone, like a horse stuck between equidistant troughs of water. And isn’t that a depressing thought, shitting all over his post-orgasm glow?


	2. Chapter 2

Three: The Game Theorists

Gavin isn’t expecting any problems when he goes into the Online Media room to hand in a USB of his assignment. He’s not expecting an encounter at all. There shouldn’t even be a teacher in the room, Mr Burr does double duty and is actually doing ninth grade history this period. And to be fair to his, in hindsight, dumb assumption of privacy in which to cross his fingers and say a prayer before dropping it in the ceramic bowl, Mr Burr actually is not in the classroom. It’s Jason P and Stephanie and someone he can’t quite see the face of.

Why can’t he see the face of the third party? Because they are standing behind Jason and Stephanie, who are frantically making out. Her hands are firmly on his ass, holding him tight to her. It’s almost a romance cover, Gav can easily imagine Jason in only jeans and a torn open white button up, Steph’s hands digging into denim to get him to feel her, as she stands in a billowing gown and her silken brown hair tumbles down her back, perfectly in place. There’s such an intensity that he almost gets why that third person is staring, Gav doesn’t want to look away either.

But then shit gets crazy. Jason and Stephanie break away, and Gavin gets his first glance. It’s one of the forty Matts at John Colver, this one distinguished from others -and even from the two others in the Online Media class- by the nickname MatPat. Gavin had the vague impression Stephanie and MatPat were dating, but apparently he just likes to creep on her when she’s with other guys? Except is it that creepy, if she knows and is cool with it? It’s not like he’s looking in in a peephole. He’s about a foot away. She has to know he’s there.

Gavin considers it a second. What would he do, really, if Geoff and Ryan started dating? As bad as it sounds from an outsider perspective, there’s a good chance he’d enjoy every moment of any public display of affection. He might even spur them on to kiss, or snuggle, when they were all hanging out after school. He gets MatPat’s point of view, he really does. 

And then shit gets even _crazier_. Because, instead of one of them putting down their homework, or leaving a sticky note for Mr Burr, or whatever they came in here to do before they got distracted, MatPat steps up. Matt gets very close to Jason, too close for even best friends of the _I watch you with your girlfriend_ variety, and Gavin frowns, because this is a fight-or-fuck distance, and just how jealous is Matt of Jason with Stephanie? He sure the fuck doesn’t want to get involved in breaking up a fight, but should be really be a narc and shout for a teacher? That seems like a bad idea. Maybe Jason and Matt just need to duke this out, so they can make their terms clearer.

And then. And then it hits peak levels of crazy. Jason puts his lips on Matt’s, and it’s like a dam shattering. There’s torrents of movement. For every second they make out, Matt’s hands move five times. Butt, shoulder blades, back, sides, neck. Matt just can’t stop touching Jason, like he’s going to vanish into nothing if Matt doesn’t keep him grounded in this plane of existence. It’s so insistent, and Gavin feels it to his core. He’s tried to stretch moments like these, sleep deprived at 4am in a dim basement but not ready to lose Ryan or Geoff to sleep yet. He’s _been_ this frantic whirlwind of energy and movement to shake them up enough that they don’t hear their sleeping bags call.

It’s too much for Gavin. He can’t stand here and watch three people who have their lives together continue to get exactly what they want. Not when he’s lacking. He just can’t.

Gavin slams the door and takes off running down the hall. He realises belatedly that he probably broke them out of their revery, but too bad. If they’re scared enough of being caught that a closed door makes them stop, then they shouldn’t have started something at school. 

He runs until he finds Ryan’s classroom. It’s only five minutes until end of period- it’s possible Gavin spent his entire study hall typing out his homework with the speed of a monkey on crack. It’s pure fucking agony to wait out those three hundred seconds, but he doesn’t consider moving. He wants this. He wants this impossible thing, and if other people can have it, then so damn can he.

“Ryan!” Gavin shouts the moment the door opens and all the students start streaming out. Even if he’s the last one out, Gav wants him to know he’s being tapped for something.

Finally there he is, all faux pompadour and sharp cheekbones. Fuck is Ryan hot, jesus.

“Morning Gav,” he says, despite them having texted a dozen times this morning already, starting around eight am.

“Ryan, Ryan, Ryan! I just saw people having a threeway!”

“Ex- excuse me?”

“I saw three people having a threeway make out sesh in Mr Burr’s room! Where’s Geoff?”

“Why?”

Gavin rolls his eyes. “Because we have to go get him. Duh, you pleb. What class does he have now?”

Ryan laughs sarcastically. “What, so you can have an orgy with him? And who?”

“You, you complete and utter plank!”

“You want to just have a threesome with me and Geoff?”

“If other people can in real life, not porn, I can too. Ryan, I demand orgies, Ryan.”

Ryan could not be more skeptical. It hurts, almost. This is what makes the most sense, to Gavin, and Ryan thinks he’s being ridiculous. “And who led you to this epiphany?”

“Uh, I don’t know if you have classes with them? Jason Parker, Matthew Patrick, Stephanie Cordato?”

Suddenly Ryan is groaning at him. “Them? They’re the charter members of the Conspiracy Club, what do you expect?”

“What does that mean?” He really doesn’t see the correlation.

“They probably have some conspiracy about monogamy being unhealthy.”

“What if it is?” Gavin asks defiantly. He doesn’t think he actually believes it, but it’s an argument that could be made, and it helps his case.

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Matt thought he was the first one to realise that Neville could have been The Boy Who Lived. I don’t trust his judgement.”

“For one, I don’t care about plebbing Harry Potter.” Gavin’s the only one in his friends group who hasn’t declared a House loyalty. He has seen all the movies, just by extension of being friends with Jack and Michael, but he wouldn’t mind if he hadn’t. “And for another, MatPat is hardly the first person ever to have a threesome.”

“In real life? Nuh uh. He’s absolutely the first person who isn’t some slut celebrity to have a threesome.”

Gavin crosses his arms. “I don’t have time to talk about the slut level of it. We need to go get Geoff. There’s only like two minutes ‘til the bell, and you’re the only one with a spare next class.”

“We’re not getting Geoff.”

“Whyyyy.” He knows he’s whining, but can’t stop himself. Ryan is being a terrible best friend. It’s not Gavin’s fault he has a bad memory for plans and timetables.

Unexpectedly, Ryan gets a bit mingy. “ _Because_ , Gavin, this stupid conversation will fuck him up! He’ll be all ‘yeah, sure’, and laugh and act like he thinks it’s a big joke, and you’ll get off on being the centre of attention, yet again. And deep down he’ll want this to not be a joke, some stupid anecdote you’re telling, but you’ll never fuckin’ notice. You’re not really going to suck anyone’s dick, we both know it. So don’t pull Geoff into this shit.”

“You don’t know that,” Gavin says. He’s more subdued now. He wasn’t expected to be roasted like this. If this is what Ryan thinks of him, that he just goes around swanning for attention and ignoring the people he hurts, why are they even friends?

“Don’t fuckin’ do it, Gavin. I swear to god. I will fuck you up.” Ryan shoves his chest lightly, more of a pang of pain to his emotions than to his body, and walks away.

Gavin doesn’t chase him through the thinning out halls. He doesn’t do anything. He certainly doesn’t text Geoff and tell him that he saw the three heads of Conspiracy Club making out, and how perfect of a solution that seems to be. Ryan’s better at morals than he is. If Ryan thinks he’s being a shit, well, he probably is. 

The thing is, Geoff does.

**Ryan said you watched some weird porn, and it’s given you ideas?**

Ryan must have gotten too in his own head about this all. He must have thought he’d warn Geoff, let him know their best friend was being a deluded, self-grandiose jerk, so Geoff would take the next words out of Gavin’s mouth with a grain of salt.

Holding his phone carefully so that Ms Morris doesn’t see it, he types back **I don’t see why a threesome is so weird. If three people like each other, isn’t it more weird if only two of them bang?** Gavin sends it to both Geoff and Ryan as a MMS message, because honestly, screw Ryan. Gavin was going to take the high road, and not bring it up, but Ryan basically forced him into being the bad guy. Well, here’s the fuckin’ bad.

Geoff’s next contribution is as melancholic as Ryan was warning about **Do you really think most people who have a threesome all really like each other? Don’t you think it’s mostly a couple picking up some random in a bar?**

Ryan, clearly being a spiteful piece of crap, answers **Yeah, loving equal interest is definitely not the first thing I think when I think threeway.**

Gavin scowls at the screen. He could straight up growl, if he wasn’t in class with twenty other kids and a teacher willing to hand out detentions by the bushel. **Well, shows what you know. You know Jason Parker, MatPat, and Stephanie? They’re all together. Tell me one of them likes one of them better than the other. Unlikely.**

**Wait wait wait. Are the Konspiracy Kids who you saw weird porn of? Were you on Omegle or some shit?**

Fucking _Ryan_ , making everything so much more difficult than it needs to be. Gavin’s irritated enough to start blowing up the chat, sending every sentence as its own message.

**It wasn’t porn  
It was just them kissing  
In Mr Burr’s room  
And it doesn’t even matter  
Except that Ryan is full of shit there can be three people couples**

Ryan butts in **That’s literally not what that word means.**

Gavin is going to straight up set Ryan on fire the next time he sees him. **Shut up I didn’t ask the dictionary to be in this convo  
There can be three people couples and thats what I want  
I want us to have lots of threesomes  
Ryan’s pissed at me because he thinks I don’t mean it  
But I do**

Gavin’s stomach is churning as he waits for a reply. It wouldn’t surprise him if they’re discussing shit in a private chat, like he’s some goddamn kid mommy and daddy have to whisper around. Annoying as shit, honestly.

“Mr Free? Please bring your phone to the front.”

Aww, fuck. Gavin quickly types out **TTMP** before standing up and doing the short walk of shame to put his cell on her desk. Teacher Took My Phone is an acronym that at least one of them has to use at least once a week. Gavin gets it from the teacher’s perspective, but to be fair to him he wouldn’t be paying attention even without a phone. Now he’s just gonna daydream, or poorly draw stick figure jokes or something.

When he retrieves his phone at the end of class, there are still no new messages waiting for him. It’s possible that they got their phones confiscated too, too quickly to type in the code. It’s also possible that they didn’t want to say anything when he couldn’t reply in live time. What’s _likely_ , however, is they decided together on some sort of ‘don’t enable the British kid’ bullshit.

Well, Gavin’s not having it. He’s going to act like they’ve said yes, and they are dating, unless and until they tell him otherwise. 

**Hey so you guys want to go to Denny’s after school**

Ryan sends **Waffles R Us is better**.

Gavin nails down his position by sending **I think Denny’s handicapped bathrooms might be better for having a threesome  
Bigger**

Neither of them replies to him. Yep, that is a solid confirmation on Ryan and Geoff vowing to ignore his ‘threesome love nonsense’. Well, lets just see who breaks first.

That’s the way the rest of the day goes. Gavin sends texts pertaining to how, where, and when they could have a threesome. Ryan and Geoff ignore him. The one outlier is when he sends **I won’t stick my dick in your ass if you don’t want**. Ryan replies to that with a **how considerate** that’s straight up dripping with sarcasm.

With no actual plans to meet up -and Gavin’s pretty sure Ryan’s scoping out some club to add to the extracurricular portion of a university application anyway-, Gavin starts his walk home. Austin in September isn’t too bad. Better than when he was in elementary school, in Thame. Maybe by the time scorching spring rolls around he’ll have gotten his driver’s license, and he’ll have air conditioning, but he’s fine on his own feet for now.

Gavin snaps a picture of someone’s garden. It’s pretty nice looking, more visual than useful, he doesn’t spot any carrots or squash. Flowers are pretty though, and probably some people care more about art than eating organically. He sends the shot to both of them, along with **We should fuck in a garden under the full moon, and let some faeries fuck with our brains and make it last a thousand years**. It’s a bit more poetic than the thirty other things he’s sent in the last few hours, but they both like books way more than he does. Maybe poetry is the way to cement it.

Oh fuck. Maybe poetry _is_ the way to cement it, because Geoff sends **look, Ryan, can you just sit in the corner and think about stagecraft while Gav and me and I dunno, how about Michael, have sex so he shuts up? I cannot handle another three weeks of this**

It should be a reply to make Gavin smile. Geoff wants to have sex with him. Except Gavin is not smiling, because they still don’t get it. Geoff somehow thinks Ryan and Michael are interchangeable. Michael is cute, but he’s no Ryan, goddamn it.

**Hey, idiots  
How am I not making it clear I want to sex you both?  
We could even not sex  
I would date you first   
If that’s what you wanted**

It’s both mind blowing and not that Ryan is the one to reply next. It is, because Ryan is the instigator of this whole drama, and by far more skeptical than Geoff when it comes to bridging the gap between best friends and sex. And it isn’t, because Ryan is the planner of the three of them. He was always the one Gavin had to win over.

**One date. One. And if you do anything to make us feel like it’s a joke, or like you’d rather just be having a circle jerk with any friend who would show up, we’re done.**

Gavin types **I agree to these terms** as fast as his thumbs will go. He might only have one chance to make this work, but it’s gonna be amazing. He’s going to do something spectacular, and really fucking woo them both.

Gavin’s riding a high as he pushes his key into the lock and opens his front door. There’s no word for it except thrilled. Over the last seven hours he’s made his wildest jerk off fantasy a reality. It’s possibly one of the least shareable meet-cutes Gavin’s ever heard of, but who cares? If they’re three gay dudes they’re not having kids to tell a meet-cute to anyway.

Fridge open, Gavin starts raiding it for some composite of an after school snack. He’s going to need his strength if he’s going to be spending his whole night figuring out how to exceed expectations for this date.


	3. Chapter 3

Four: MBMBAM

After a night spent brainstorming, spent developing a plan so elaborate, so catered to specific individuals and skill sets that he's basically the next Danny from Ocean's 11, Gavin thinks he has it. He's developed a date so stunningly perfect hundreds of years from now people will be talking about it. It's the smegging Sistine Chapel of dates.

Sure that futzing with it more will only start to mess it up, Gavin decides to move to the next task. It's a secondary level of importance. In fact, getting this info is the exact opposite of what he’s been working on. The part Gavin’s trying to focus on, so that he doesn’t feel like a shitheel doing _exactly_ what Ryan insinuated he would, is that he’s not doing it for the reasons Ryan thought he would be. There’s information he needs to gather for the sake of his boyfriends, and the more time he has to ponder it, the better. 

Everybody at John Colver knows the My Brother My Brother and Me program. Whether or not you actually download it, everyone’s heard of it. It's a comedy show, dressed up to look like advice. Years ago Justin McElroy started it as a broadcast class project and forced his younger brothers to join him, and somehow Travis and Griffon have both gotten away with getting marked on it in their respective grades, despite it never changing. Gavin’s suspects it’s because Mrs Cortez, the broadcast teacher in question, actively enjoys laughing at the moron question askers in the podcast. She doesn’t want to piss on the McElroy parade by making the younger brothers go on hiatus to work on something else.

That everyone treats it like a joke is why Gavin doesn't feel weird emailing in his question. He's not really outing their relationship if every listener thinks it's a joke. And it's remotely possible that one of the McElroys will have a legit answer for him. The possibility is worth the effort of emailing, at least.

_Dear MBMBaM,  
I’m in a threeway relationship. We haven’t had sex yet, but we’re not the ‘wait until marriage’ type, so it’s gonna happen at some point. How do I make sure I pay attention to everyone equally? I want to make sure everyone involved feels loved, and gets off the way they deserve to._

_Thanks,  
ADHD In Bed_

That’ll get him some good intel, right? Justin and Travis are both in university now, there’s no way they haven’t had enough sex to know how to please their partners. Gavin’s not sure about Griffin, he doesn’t really hang out with the guy. 

It’s not that Gavin’s worried about being a virgin with two experienced guys. Geoff and Ryan barely give him shit for it when they were just friends, Gavin doubts they’ll make a big sneering deal of it now. It’s just, even when he’s just fantasizing and jerking off he has trouble keeping his mind on one thing. In real life all the body parts he’s thinking about don’t just disappear when they’re not the one at the forefront. Twelve dates from now, when the jeans actually do come off, Gavin wants to know tips and tools for making the math of one person vs fifty body parts capable of receiving pleasure actually work. Ryan and Geoff deserve to feel pampered.

He rereads the email again, types in a sentence about being a virgin and wanting to impress, then deletes it. Based on their general sense of humor, it’s more likely to derail the McElroys than help. He rereads it a few more times, trying to extrapolate any point on which the brothers could get stuck, get distracted making a mockery of the inquiry. There’s the huge warning flag of it’s a question about sex, but it’s not like he can do anything about that. To ask about sex, you do have to mention sex.

For lack of anything better to do, Gavin presses send. The email whisks off to them, to join what has to be a huge inbox of both direct questions, and fans linking them to Yahoo based hilarity. By the time the McElroys get to his question, he’ll actually need the advice. They upload an episode every week, the backlog surely never lessening, not based on the amount of comments they get on Youtube. Six weeks from now, Gavin will have gone on more dates with Ryan and Geoff than he can count -though fuck counting, he’s going to take videos of anything of import- and Travis will tell him some magical space-and-time folding way of getting two pricks in his mouth at the same time, and life will be good.

For now, though, it’s maybe time to look at any of the homework assignments he’s up ‘til now utterly ignored. Or, alternatively, connect with Michael on xBox Live and get a game going. He’s had a mentally taxing day, he’s allowed to blow off some steam.

***

No one tells you what behaviours you have to change when you go from friends to dating. Gavin has no manual to consult, no online listicle, and he’s too out of it to figure it out right now. Gavin’s half in pyjamas, half dressed, and Logan just ate a spoonful of his bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, rather than continue on his own bowl of Fruity Pebbles. Lily is screaming that someone needs to help her with a flower crown braid. Mom’s already left for work, early so she could drop Bryant off at whatever instrument practice he does on Wednesdays. The little shit can play like thirty fucking things, and is the designated Talented Child.

In other words, it’s a standard morning, and any other day he’d be texting Ryan and Geoff and Michael and probably Jack some sort of good morning comment. Now though, Geoff and Ryan are above Michael and Jack, so surely they deserve something better? Should he say good morning lover? Should he send the standard to his boys, but not send anyone else anything? How exclusive does he need to be?

In the end he compromises with himself that he’ll send the regular morning texts to everyone who usually gets them, but make a big deal out of seeing his boyfriends once they come face to face. Well, come face to face in privacy. As far as he knows, this is going to be a quiet thing, a closeted thing. Geoff’s parents won’t care, hell they probably wouldn’t care if he joined an orgy having cult. Ryan’s parents will care. Mom and Dad will definitely have some things to say.

The route to JCHS is quick, less than ten minutes. A more environmentally conscious family wouldn’t bother with making a trip like that in a SUV. In the Free family, a ride to school is the reward Gavin gets for making sure his siblings get out of the house in one piece without interfering with Dad’s morning business. The only negative is it gets him there too early, John Colver classes start forty five minutes later than the elementary school classes do. It’s not that much of a drawback though, it just means his locker is where friends and acquaintances congregate if they arrive before the five minute bell. It’s a good way to see people, now that his lunches are spent fighting trolls and whatever.

No less than a minute after he’s relocking his combination lock, Michael’s sidling up to him. As another non driver depending on other people’s charity, he has a pretty solid offer with Lindsay. Same problem as Gavin has though, though with different technicalities. Lindsay is a pretty hardcore athlete. She’s got something for each season, and while her family is rich enough to easily pay for any university she could attend, she’s probably going to get scouted for something or other. Sometimes Michael spends the hour before first period cheering her on like a massive pleb, considering it’s only practice. Occasionally Gavin joins in on the plebness, and shrieks shit from the sideline that would have the coach failing him in P.E., if only that was a class he still took.

“Hey Gav,” Michael says, double redundantly, as they’ve already texted good morning, and he’s the only one in the hall. But Gavin will accept it, because he likes his boi.

“Hey Michael-boi.”

They both sit on the newly polished floor -a feat Gavin would not do at the end of any given day, but right now the gleam means he won’t be getting any kind of ass disease- and Michael starts a rant about the stupid hard level of his newest 3DS game. Gavin settles in, happy to listen. He likes a person who’s passionate about their shit, whatever it happens to be.

By the time Geoff comes in, the hallway is much more full, and Gavin’s got a handful of friends around him. Geoff actually comes in with Jack, but Gavin’s only got eyes for one of them. He peels away from the group without a second thought, and as Jack goes to talk with Burnie about some Game of Thrones fan theory, Gavin’s left alone with Geoff. Well, not _really_. It’s not like he could sweep the guy into a shoulders to the floor, arm on the back, ravishing kiss, World War Two victory style. But he at least has the space to say something intimate without being overheard.

“Morning Geoff.”

Geoff raises his eyebrows. “You had to get this close to say that?”

“What if I added as soon as no one is looking I’m going to kiss you so long you’ll feel your hair growing?”

He smiles, dazed for the briefest of moments before snapping out of it. “That could be cool. Especially since I thought you’d changed your mind.”

Gavin frowns. “You mean you thought Ryan was right, that I was bloody joking around.”

Geoff shrugs.

“I’m not joking.”

“Okay.”

“Geoffry!”

This time his stupid non verbal reaction is a sigh.

“Geoff, what the fuck Geoff?”

“Look, just you didn’t text us last night, not once, after texting us like five hundred fucking annoying times during the day. And this morning it was just ‘morning’, no dick pic solicitation, no-”

Gavin interrupts Geoff’s annoying insecurities. “What am I supposed to do, say I love you before we even go on our first date?”

“I mean. Do you?”

How the hell is he supposed to answer this? In a perfect world he’d just kiss Geoff, make all this dumb garbage go away, but that quick fix isn’t an option. Gavin crosses his arms, then immediately uncrosses them when he remembers from his junior year psychology class that that’s a sign of defensiveness. Although, so is fidgeting, so he’s fucked either way.

“I don’t know how to answer that. And not because I don’t but I don’t want to say that because I want something out of you. Okay? I’ve been your friend since junior high, and the wanting to bang thing is new, but it’s not that new, and I’ve had a while to get used to the idea of not getting it. So I don’t know what’s best-friends feelings, and what’s romantic feelings, and how those should be different, and I have no idea if I’m suppressing anything out of some self-safety shit that I’m not recognising.”

“Okay,” Geoff says. He seems a bit shocked, he probably wasn’t expecting such a hot shitload of feelings. Gavin tries not to do feelings very often.

“So I want to say I do, because I want to. But I don’t know yet. And Ryan would feed me my own spleen if I fucked up your feelings and shit. I don’t know if you know this, but he’s very protective of you. I think it’s the way he shows that he loves you? Because I think he does?” Gavin’s pretty confident of that, actually. Thirty six hours ago, Before Konspiracy Kids Makeout -and he’s going to have to make that an acronym, it’s definitely going to be a before and after point of his personal timeline- he did struggle with not knowing if Ryan liked him or Geoff more. Now that it can be both, equally, and considering Ryan’s probably better at emotions, love-towards-Geoff is basically a sure thing.

“Right. Okay. But uh, for the sake of my self confidence or whatever, can you solicit a dick pic tomorrow?”

Geoff is smiling this sheepish half smile, and Gavin thanks past-himself for all the instances of touchy feely friendship. It’s not out of character in the least for him to lean up and hook an arm around Geoff’s neck to drag him into a hug. Good thing for him too, that Geoff is similarly up for an affectionate tussle at all times; he can snuggle in and pat Gavin’s stomach a few times, even get his head down at Gavin’s neck. Blocked by his own skull, Geoff is able to kiss Gavin’s throat for just a second. Gavin can already tell it’s going to be a highlight of his day.

Except, no. As the ten seconds loop in his mind throughout his first three periods -he has freakin’ study hall, what else is he gonna do except daydream- Gavin firmly decides he wants more. He keeps up a pleasant facade of normal texting; mocking class idiots and spamming them with lyrics that’ll inevitably earworm Geoff, all the while trying to figure out how exactly to get more than an instant of touching. Geoff’s insecurities are not Ryan’s, and sexting will not go over well at this time. Even he can figure that out.

It’s in the middle of third period that he finally commits to the danger of intimacy in public and texts them both **don’t go to Zhou’s today**

**What do you have in mind?** Ryan sends back. There are half a dozen ways to read into the comment. It could be Ryan skeptical that Gavin has an idea better than the regular plan playing D &D. It could be him being curious, wanting to know what he’s going to be doing that hour instead. Or it could be Ryan, disappointed, thinking Gavin’s big date is just taking them out for fast food. 

Gavin decides to keep it simple, keep it about location. **Meet me at the emergency stairs for the weight room** he sends, and keeps his phone in his pocket for the next twenty minutes, until lunch. They’ll show up, or they won’t, but there’s no need to debate it.

When the bell rings, Gavin packs his gubs back into his backpack, and starts making his way through the semi-labyrinth that is John Colver High School. A building like this is what happens when you have a school that’s been open for sixty years, that’s expanded for a growing population at least a dozen times. The weight room is one of the few maintained rooms in the basement, and annoyingly enough, one of the least used, as it’s across the campus to both the gymnasium and the locker room for the various sports teams. Why use the more generic shit, if you care about getting ripped, when you can use the top of the line stuff donated by football alumni? 

Once he’s in the basement, and through the somewhat creepy white cinderblock hallways -seriously, there’s barely any room for a skinny kid to walk down them, there’s no fucking way this is ADA compliant- and into the weight room, Gavin opens the door that _doesn’t_ lead to a tiny closet filled entirely with a vending machine that only hands out bottled water and no name brand Energy Drink. That’s the fire exit for this warren; a door to a staircase that leads outside. Gavin takes the stairs two at a time until he comes to the landing. It can’t be any bigger than a dining room table, but if an elliptical bursts into flames no one’s going to be lingering anyway.

It’s only a few minute wait until he can hear the door opening again, and then there they both are. Ryan, as always, looks like frost melting on grass midmorning; the slightest bit cold, but brimming with vitality. Gavin wants to live on him, breathe him in. And then Geoff, his pretty punk rock slob. His black jeans are stained with street dust. There are a hundred slits in his pullover hoodie, all stitched closed with different colours of thread. Gavin could guess a hundred dollar commission on Etsy, except for how he was watching and editing some of his footage for an Online Media assignment while Geoff was sitting on his bed surrounded by scattered coils of embroidery floss, needle in hand.

“Hi, boys,” he starts. “Looking pretty!”

The totally sincere statement is meant with two different scoffs, on two different lovely faces. Such cynics, his boys. 

“Why are we here, Gavin?” Ryan asks.

“Was thinking we could sit and hold hands, or something,” he answers. He can only hope they both take the suggestion the right way.

Unless they don’t understand it at all. “What?”

“Fuck. So I want to make out with you both. Basically all I’ve thought about, innit? But _you’re_ paranoid I’m only in it for the attention,” Gavin gestures to Ryan. “So making out with Geoff in front of you would prove your point, right? And I’m not going to do it without you here, that defeats the purpose of wanting a threeway. And the same attention thing goes for just you, wouldn’t it? Not to mention that _you_ ” Gavin gestures to Geoff this time, “would feel left out if I just kissed Ryan.”

“So your solution is... to hold hands?”

Gavin shrugs. “Gets me touching you both, works as a point in the ‘not about the thrill’ column, because it’s just palms, after all. It’s the best I’ve got. And I mean, you can go back to being a bard and a sorcerer, but I’d most like to do this, and I’m in this relationship too, so doesn’t what I want count too?”

Geoff’s the first to make a move. He abruptly sits on the linoleum, back against the bottom of the thick door to the outside. “Sit down, dipshits.”

This floor isn’t half as clean as the floor by the lockers. Gavin would bet the janitor last swept here in 1998. That’s not enough to prevent him from sitting in the V of Geoff’s open legs. He rests back with his full weight on Geoff’s chest, confident the guy can bear it. Again, the benefits of already having a hands on relationship. But this isn’t just about Geoff, and Gavin smiles when his outstretched hand is enough to coax Ryan to sit down. He gets in close, sitting on Geoff’s side but facing them, close enough that Gavin can actually grab his hand, and Geoff can put his own tattooed fingers on Ryan’s thigh.

“You don’t work tonight, right Ryebread?” It’s Gavin’s last possible plot hole. He was confident that he knows Ryan’s work schedule last night, Ryan works pretty steady hours, but he didn’t actually text him to check.

“Nope.”

“Both of you should come over around six. I have the best date ever planned.”

“Really,” Geoff scoffs.

“You’ll see.” He squeezes Ryan’s hand after he says it. Gavin gets that he’s apparently been enough of a git to make them doubt his seriousness. But he is, and if it takes a hundred years of hand holding to be trusted, he’ll do it.

***

Once Gavin’s home, fed and watered, has double checked that his siblings have made it in and seem unlikely to kill themselves or others, and unpacked his backpack, he can’t help but check the time on his phone, and then recheck it on his alarm clock. He still has _hours_ until Geoff and Ryan come over. What is he supposed to do with himself until then?

In a moment of delusion, of wild optimism, he sits on his bed and unzips his fattest binder. He’s got homework in three of his six classes, a few worksheets and a choose your topic essay due next week. He skips entirely over the concept of collecting evidence from his notes, or even googling for reference material he might want to use. That’s much too much to focus on. The biology worksheet, however. That Gavin can probably handle.

Two fill in the blanks filled and twenty minutes later, Gavin concedes. He can’t make his brain think about amphibians right now. All that’s in his brain is Ryan’s lovely face, Geoff’s scrawny but comforting torso. The thought of sucking both their dicks as they kneel side by side and beckon him. Gavin could write a choose your topic essay about how he figures Geoff’s pubes will be wild, a bush to tickle his nose and get in his mouth, and that Ryan will be trimmed, based on that one ad campaign he did with waxed armpits. Mr Cortez would give him a detention for the depravity of it, but Gavin could definitely type up 5 pages worth of speculation.

Gavin shoves his binder to the floor. It makes a dull thud, and Gavin briefly wonders if the rings have popped open and if it’s a huge mess. He doesn’t care enough to check, though. Not when he’s got his fly unzipped and his cock in hand, stroking it to the thought of Ryan and Geoff 69ing. He can’t decide who would be better at it; Ryan prim and tight lipped and getting a hand in on the action when he can’t deep throat, or Geoff, sloppy and willing to choke himself for the full length, make himself gag for it and keep going. That’s one of the best things about jerking off, though, he can imagine it all at the same time, no need to focus.

Jerking off once though, that doesn’t eat up as much time as one might think. Sure, he could turn it into a marathon. It wouldn’t be the first time. It wouldn’t be the _fiftieth_ time. It’s basically the best way to spend a Sunday. But if he jerks off for the next two hours straight, only water breaks in between, he’s going to end up completely tuckered out by the time they arrive. He cannot allow himself to be in anything but peak condition, not for this test of Ryan’s he has to pass. So he zips up again, and ponders what else he can do that doesn’t require much concentration.

When Gavin figures it out, he feels like an idiot. It’s MBMBAM release day, fucking duh. It’s like he hasn’t downloaded it religiously for the last sixty weeks or something. Gavin scrambles to get it onto his laptop, and opened.

After the staple intro music and introductions -Gavin’s not sure he’ll ever not snicker when Travis calls himself the middlest brother- they get right into things. The first question is a Yahoo Answer; do you think Bigfoot has a foot fetish? Griffin can barely ask it before he starts snickering, and Gavin finds himself laughing along as the brothers get into the meat of the question. The second question is another Yahoo: is it true two out of every two hundred people are ghosts? Justin takes it into a ridiculous area, and by the time he and Travis are done advocating for a ‘punch everyone you meet, if your fist goes through them they are’ plan, Gavin’s practically weeping.

“I’m going to go with an email,” Justin starts.

“Lay it on me,” Griffon instructs.

“Dear mabimbam. I’m in a threeway relationship. We haven’t had sex yet, but we’re not the ‘wait until marriage’ type, so it’s gonna happen at some point. How do I make sure I pay attention to everyone equally? I want to make sure everyone involved feels loved, and gets off the way they deserve to. Thanks, ADHD In Bed.”

Oh my god. Oh my god, what? Gavin stands up and hits pause so he can have the space to think. Why the hell are they answering this now? He emailed in at like nine pm last night. Their inbox is supposed to be brimming! If they open everything chronologically they should have opened it weeks from now, when everything was settled, and the question actually needed an answer. How the hell did they get it, answer it, edit the recording, and post the episode all in the span of like fifteen hours, counting the hours people are supposed to sleep, and go to high school or college?

Surprise or not though, Gavin has to press play. He wants this advice, or at least the possibility of it. He can’t put the episode on hold until it matters, either. There’s a better than nil chance either Geoff or Ryan will end up hearing this, especially if the brothers go funny over helpful. Ryan and Geoff aren’t loyal listeners, like he is, but there’s more than one person in Gavin’s friend group who like to play the best snippets for those unaware.

“Oh, I love when they do Ann Landers style. Makes me feel reeeeeal classy,” Griffin says.

“Phillip, do you mind if I call you Phillip? Phillip, the first thing you should do is confirm that you're alive and present and haven't been teleported into a softcore porn.”

“Do they even still make those?” Travis asks Justin.

“I think HBO's taken it over. Like full on nudity in shit like Game of Thrones and Westworld. Sex _and_ plot is where it’s at.”

“What you should do is invite them both to a sleepover. Get them drunk, like really-”

“Travis!”

“Let me finish, boys. Get them really drunk and when they're both asleep write on your own head in Sharpie: virgin. When they wake up they won't remember doing it, but they'll think it's because they were drunk, and they'll feel bad they've made fun. And then they'll both be all over you, to fix it, and you won’t have to worry about moves.”

Justin offers, “have you considered some kind of rock paper scissors like event?”

“No. What? No.”

Gavin can practically hear Griffin shake his head as he talks over his brothers. “It's obvious. Don't sex them now. What you want to do is graduate with honors grades and get into a field with lots of money. Fat staxs, if you will. Then sink it all into a company promising to develop cloning. With your helpful millions, you're granted first dibs. So you can date person A and also you can date person B. No need to worry about parcelling equal affections.”

“I don’t think that helps, Griffin. Phillip said he was already in a dating two people relationship. He doesn’t need a way to date them both fairly. He’s got that shit on lock down already. He’s just looking for a way for his, ahem, manhood to also be fair.”

“Counterpoint,” Travis states.

“Go on.”

“I think boning down on two people at once isn't as all star as it seems.”

“How dare you take away the precious sex dreams of half of mankind?” Griffin asks. Gavin can’t help but agree. Threesomes are like peak fantasy.

“Let’s consider the options. Taco Town. Three girls. One of them is bound to have manicured fingers, it's just an odds things. Girls like that shit. Which means she can't contribute. Frustration Station. Two-”

“Do you have a name for all possible combinations?” Justin asks.

“Yes.”

“Alright. Proceed.”

“Frustration Station. Two girls and a guy. There's no way that erection is lasting long enough to please everyone. France Isn't Fun. Two boys and a girl. One hundred fifty percent chance she'll find Eiffel Towering was less appealing than the dudes. Flight of The Conchords Prophecy Confirmed.”

“What?” Griffon screeches in the background.

Travis continues. “Three dudes. Certainly too many dicks on the dancefloor. How is a fucktrain supposed to do anything for the boy in front? I repeat my opening statement: it's not as good as it seems.”

“Phillip, buddy, I suggest staying celibate.”

Justin has the last word there. Griffin begins to read off another Yahoo, and Gavin pauses it again. If anything, he feels _less_ prepared for a threesome than before. Travis really pissed on the parade, saying there’s no sexual combination that’s fun for everyone. Maybe he _will_ have to pull the bloody virgin card on Ryan and Geoff, use it to excuse his future failures. For now, the best he can hope for is that the other questions lead to funnier answers, and Barbara or Burnie shares links of those tomorrow morning instead. He really doesn’t want to deal with this yet.

Somehow his jittery ass makes it through the next two hours, and by the time he gets a text saying **We’re almost here** , he’s showered, slathered in deodorant, and got the addresses of their different destinations pinned in his phone for easier directions.

The plan is to go straight out on the date Gavin created. Even if they weren't though, it's not that suspicious. They and Michael are over all the time, shortly followed by Michael and Ryan's other BFFs, Lindsay and Jeremy. One thing that can be said for his parents; they know how to stock an entertainment room. The Frees aren’t the richest of his friend group, but they’re a high left point on the graph of wealth and supervision, as compared to Geoff’s low left of being broke and never watched ever, and Lindsay’s high right of being rich as shit, but kept under thumb. The position makes it a good place to hang out.

**go to the back door** Gavin texts back. In theory, it’ll provide some privacy. At least enough to meet the boys. There's no point in having them come in and make small talk with the family. Everyone’s home except Dad; brothers and sister fighting over the Xbox One X in the front living room, Mom in her room on the third floor, organising the walk in closet for the hundredth time. She’s been at it for days now, talking at dinner about how it’s all going to make _sense_ when she’s done.

Gavin thinks it seems a little desperate to be waiting with the door open, so he doesn’t do that. Instead he calmly, _maturely_ paces the back foyer the five steps he can before turning and going the other direction, hand jammed in his pocket like it’s the only way he’ll feel the vibration of his phone. It’s with overwhelming relief that he tugs his hem straight and resists the urge to put his fingers in his gelled hair when he hears footsteps on the landing.

They're beautiful. That’s his first thought opening the door; that he’s landed the two hottest boys at John Colver. Except he hasn’t, has he? To borrow from Jeremy’s life struggles, he’s made it as far as being allowed to enter a competition now. He still has to have a great show on the rings, and get a high enough score from the judges. But they really are beautiful. Neither have dressed up at all. Geoff’s in his standard mostly black; baggy jeans with a few rips on the left leg, rips Gavin knows are genuinely from road rash. A unzipped hoodie reveals a The Faint shirt, grey on black with randomly placed triangles and fractals. When he’s not listening to punk, he’s got good taste in electronic rock. Ryan’s the one who brings the colour, primary blue contrasting with the light wash of his jeans and the gold in his hair. Gavin’s not a shleb, but how can he possibly compare?

He could start going down the road of complimenting them, but if he does he might never stop. Or worse, they might take it the wrong way. Ryan has complicated feelings towards his own hotness, how he got his serving job essentially because of his looks, and his side modeling gig. And Geoff’s likely to be self-deprecating. Gavin takes the safe route and skips over the minefield of compliments. “Okay, so first we're going to-”

“Or we could just hang out here.” Geoff says.

“What? But I have this brilliant date planned.”

Ryan shrugs. “I don't really see the point.”

“What?” Gavin protests again. “You said I had one date to prove I wasn't messing around, being a faffy little jebpiece. I want my date. You can't just-”

“We don't need a wine and dine to prove anything when you outed us.”

“I bloody didn't!” Why would he risk a hundred people’s reactions when they’re not even a solid coup- a solid threeway yet?

“You think we don't listen to MBMBM?”

Oh fuck. Fuck on a stick. Gavin is suddenly consumed with the pulsing hot urge to murder his past self, cut his own fingers off to make sending that fucking email an impossibility. “Okay, so I said something. But I didn't use names, or even genders, and it's not like my voice was recorded. There's no way I f'ed any of us over.”

“That's not what we're saying, dipshit. We're saying you don't contact an advice column, even a shitty one, if you don't actually care.”

Geoff interrupts Ryan. “So don't blow your money on a fancy restaurant, we get it.”

“Actually we were gonna BMX for a while, then go to some author's sci-fi book introduction reading thingy, then probably a barbeque place,” Gavin says, numbly. What are they saying? That Griffin and Travis and Justin’s stupid comments actually helped his case? _Really_?

“That actually sounds pretty sweet.”

“Pretty sweet gig.”

“I mean, we could still do it.” He’s got his wallet in his pocket, after all, waiting to take the hit of buying hours on a track, as well as the bike and helmet rentals.

“We could,” Geoff agrees. “Or we could watch twenty minutes of Stranger Things then I could put your dick in my mouth.” 

Why is it that the image of Geoff gagging on his dick, drool rolling down his chin, makes Gavin's own mouth go dry? “We uh. We could do that too,” he manages to choke out. 

“And I just continue to watch the demogorgon, or...” Ryan huffs.

“No, shithead. You're sitting there fingering yourself so that Gav can put his wet British dick in your ass.”

Gavin feels lightheaded. Must be from every ounce of blood in his body roaring like a tsunami to his cock. He'd think he needs to sit down, except to back up to the padded bench would mean getting further away from them.

Somehow Ryan remains unaffected. He tilts his head like he's thinking, then nods. “Decent.”

“You have a better idea?” Geoff demands with fake outrage, voice cracking. Gavin loves it, loves the sound of his passion or indignation driving him into a higher register. He hopes Geoff does it for the rest of his life.

“Yeah. Something like this.” And Ryan is on him, pressing him against the wall. Ryan goes for two targets at once. He nuzzled his face into Geoff's neck and starts sucking a huge hickey into his beautifully pale flesh. At the same time, his hand is harshly groping Geoff's junk. It's as if undoing the zipper is too hard, so he's going to bore his way through the denim. 

Gavin is frozen. He doesn't know how to enter this scene, despite wanting nothing more than to feel them. They're both so forceful it’d be like voluntarily walking into a tornado. It's not how he thought it would be. 

Geoff pushes at Ryan's hand, swerving it off his dick and onto his ass. The way Ryan squeezes the flesh like it's his, Gavin can already flash forward to where this will inevitably end up. Geoff is going to get fucked. Ryan is going to fucking _rail_ him, and Geoff’s shoddily tattooed hands will be clamped tight on Ryan’s shoulders so he doesn't fly out into the moon.

But just like that, Ryan’s moving his hand off his ass and back to Geoff's dick. Geoff starts making these noises, almost like whimpering. Gavin's never heard anything like it. There's no porno that captures this kind of mix of sexy and helplessly innocent. Gavin wants to eat the noise out of Geoff's mouth. He wants to lick the desperation off of his teeth. 

Ryan drags his hand up, and up, and up. His hand is on Geoff’s sparse treasure trail, t-shirt partially rucked up. Then the fingers dig down, press down, are in Geoff's jeans. What Gavin is witnessing is definitely Ryan's hand on Geoff's cock. Gavin takes it in for a moment, gets stuck like he’s got Stendhal syndrome in front of beauty. Then he snaps back to reality. He's in the back landing while all of his siblings are across the house on this floor. Sure, they'll probably not come back here; the bathroom is closer to the den and same if they want a snack from the kitchen, but who knows what runs through ten year old minds?

“Stop. Stop, we need to stop.”

“But you wanted to.”

“We need to go upstairs. We can't be here, we need to go.”

“Ohhh,” Geoff says, pretending to know what's going on. “Virgin wants to be deflowered in his bed.”

“Yeah. That. Or _maybe_ I don't want Logan to see us fopping off because he decides it's closer to get his bike from the garage this way.”

“Okay,” Geoff backs down easily, thankfully. It might have ruined the vibe if he was a mingepot about the details of consent.

Geoff bends down to unlace his sneakers. Like Gavin, Geoff is particular with shoes and socks. When Ryan realises what Geoff is doing he kicks his off, of course. They're disintegrating at the back ankle, but it doesn't bother him. Don't tell anyone, but Gavin might buy him new runners for Christmas. 

They dash through the short two room hallway, mom's craft room and dad's office, through the adult den, then up the one step to the eat in kitchen. The next room over is the large kids room, powder room at the front of the house. Gavin can hear Logan and Lily arguing about Zelda and he has to assume Bryant is in there too. Instead Gavin pulls a tight left and sprints up the stairs straight to the first floor, where all the kids bedrooms and a bathroom are. 

Gavin locks his bedroom door the second Geoff and Ryan are through it. Like hell is he going to get interrupted. This time it's him Ryan is half tackling. Gavin's shoulders get pressed hard against his hollowcore closet door as Ryan obliterates the space between them. The hinges are straining, bending inward. Ryan’s movements are almost identical to those downstairs; hand on his cock and mouth on his. Gavin somehow doesn't mind being the second recipient of Ryan's technique. The nth, really, Ryan’s probably used these moves on the other people he’s gotten with. It just doesn’t seem like it matters though, not when right now it’s him getting touched.

All at once Gavin feels very confined. “Fuck. Bollocking fuck, I want this goddamn shit off.” He picked out his shirt and jeans to best compliment what he has to offer, but at this moment he wishes he could burn them off his body. It’s all a tight, thick barrier of fabric between himself and Ryan’s fucking fingers. He scoots out the side of Ryan’s presence, doorknob briefly jamming into his spine before he can take a step forward, and rapidly starts stripping down.

The feeling must be contagious. They're both taking their jeans off now too, Geoff's black and baggy, Ryan's tight cut and good for his ass. Geoff takes longer, Ryan’s tight tee vs a hoodie and worn band shirt. But finally _finally_ he's totally naked with the two guys he thinks he loves.

Gavin knows what to do next. He shoves his comforter off the bed, bringing it down to a fitted sheet. Gavin's not sure how fluid-filled things will become, but he knows a fitted sheet is easier to wash than a massive fluffy blanket. He throws himself onto his queen bed -technically a hand me down from a moving family friend, but Gav will take bed space any way he can get it- and doesn't try to stop the bounce. There's no way springs can be heard over Breath of the Wild on eardrum deteriorating volume. Geoff climbs on next, positioning himself higher up, against the headboard. Ryan's last, on Geoff's other side, forcing Gavin to scoot over to the edge of the bed so they all have room. 

“I'm going to suck your dick, Geoffry.” 

“Yes,” Geoff groans. 

“I'm going to gob your knob. I'm going to choke down your meat. I'm going to-”

“Oh my god! Shut up!” Ryan bursts out.

Gavin starts laughing. “I've got more. I’m gonna goz on your sun dried cactus. I’m going to get to the cream filling.” 

Jeremy would probably be proud of him for the excessive wordplay. Probably not great with the gay threesome, he's kind of a jock, and a rowdy kid, but the words? Yeah. Ryan however, is not pleased. He clearly wants Gavin to stop, which makes it all the more fun to keep going. Except then Ryan's fingers weave through Gavin's hair, and once he's got a good grip he yanks Gavin head down and to the left, so Geoff's tip is milimetres away from his lips. Gavin opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out to test his dick. It's one foot in beach water at a time, the x rated version. 

“Holy dicks, Gavin. Jesus fucking Christ.”

Prompted by the happy response he puts the whole head in his mouth. It's like popping in a medium jawbreaker; you know you're going to be at it awhile but it doesn't strain anything. Meanwhile Ryan is back onto Geoff's neck. It’s going to be a solid foot by foot wide bruise when Ryan’s done, he swears it. Not that Geoff is complaining. If anything he seems really into it. Laying on top of Geoff’s lower half, Gavin can feel the way he’s hitching and twisting, reacting to both the blowjob and Ryan’s kissing.

Gavin keeps sucking. He tries bobbing his head up and down. He tries swirling patterns with his tongue. It's interesting, a cock with no foreskin. Makes him wonder if it's more or less sensitive than what he has himself.

Ryan gets off the bed, and curls around the bottom to climb onto the other side. He's more Gavin's level than Geoff's, something Gavin knows for a fact when Ryan's hand reaches around him and starts playing with his cock. It's nothing more than fiddling with his foreskin, but no one has ever done that to him, and it's great.

“I wanna get my fingers in you,” Ryan says. It's almost a growl, his vice sounds so husky. “Is that okay?”

“Uh,” Gavin starts. Sure he's jerked off to the thought of the two of them doing any and everything the internet can dream up, but there's a difference between fantasy and doing something. Then Geoff chimes in with an opinion.

“Gavin I think you'll like it. I liked it.” To Gavin's unasked _with who_ Geoff answers “Did it myself. There was a girl too. It's good, Gav.”

Gavin has an inkling they both think he’s a bottom, and he'd like to state he could top the hell out of both of them, but he wants this too much to disrupt it himself.

“Do it, Rye. Do it.”

The next sounds Gavin hears are Geoff opening, then rifling through his bedside drawer. He has to wonder if he's just that obvious, or if Geoff's spied on him in the past, come in the room when he wasn't looking. Geoff flings the bottle of lube and it lands somewhere beyond Ryan, just short enough that it doesn't land on the floor. Ryan pulls him off of Geoff’s legs, folding Gavin so his face is still on Geoff’s inner thigh, but his left side is against the mattress. Gavin doesn’t protest the manhandling. Why would he? If his boys have an idea about how this should happen, he’s going to follow their lead.

First Ryan plays with the crack of his ass. Maybe he thinks he's being slow and soothing, but having the slick feel of fresh lube smeared all over him just makes Gavin feel kind of embarrassed. Embarrassed in a good way, burning hot all over and feeling like the centre of attention. It’s not soothing at all, it’s a fucking hot shaming tease. By the time Ryan's actually pushing his fingertip past Gavin's ring of muscle, Gavin's just about to scream. 

It’s maddening, the way a single finger makes Gavin’s entire body pulse. He’s experimented with this before. Not especially often, usually a jerk off session revolves around his prick, maybe his balls. But he has touched himself, you know, _there_ , an act more awkward than thrilling. There are angle problems, and he can’t help but consider the last time he shat. In the hands of another, though, there’s not a single shade of awkward. Instead it’s Gavin trying not to die. It’s not that Ryan’s digit is particularly big. Gavin doesn’t feel like a pole’s been shoved up in him or anything. It’s the way that he’s suddenly aware of all the skin that’s on the inside of himself. Every millimetre Ryan is touching is sending signals in a radiating wave, like his whole body is being touched.

The feeling only intensifies when Ryan pulls his slick finger back, and plunges in again with two. Gavin could swear his eyelids pulse. He knows for a fact his hand curls into a claw, because Geoff is bitching at him about nails in his delicate fucking leg motherfucker. Ryan’s hand starts to thrust, and Gavin might be seeing colours that don’t exist. He scrunches his eyes closed so tightly he can see tiny white glowing bubbles.

The noises start in earnest when Ryan starts fucking him with three fingers. Gavin can say with certainty he’s going to come from this, from being stretched to within an inch of his life on Ryan’s hand. His body and brain have become two separate beings, and his body has all the control. He’s groaning now, repetitively. His brain is aware of how stupid he sounds, but his body doesn’t care, needs an outlet to send some of this sensation.

“I'm gonna fuck you one day,” Ryan promises. Gavin just keeps rocking back. He likes the pressure of three fingers deep inside himself. He can’t help chasing the feeling, pushing backwards when Ryan tries to withdraw. 

Gavin's lips have long lost their grip on Geff, but something in the way his hand spasms on Geoff’s thigh reminds him of the email he sent, of his initial concern. Ryan’s rocking his fuckin’ world, but dick-shit is happening for Geoff. That’s a gold star way to make him feel left out. So Gavin tries to go back to it, to include Geoff in this scene. He has limited success. It is extremely difficult to focus when Ryan's fucking him with his hand. He can only sustain four or five sucks before his mouth opens so he can moan, or groan, or pant.

“Pass the lube,” Gavin says during one such catching-your-breath lull. Ryan does, and Gavin squirts some onto his hand. Gavin works a hand before Geoff's legs.

“What are you doing?”

“You said you liked it,” Gavin points out. A winning argument, apparently, since Geoff doesn’t say anything else.

God he loves the way his hand looks between Geoff's legs. His thighs are creamy white, but Gav can imagine them tattooed, bands of tribal black circling around him. That or some kind of BDSM tie, like belts. Gavin would love to see Geoff immobile and surviving off of other people's touches. That's not an option for today, so Gavin makes due with pushing up with a finger and feeling the resistance give in. Geoff's hips buck up almost instantaneously, which is so hot Gavin can barely stand it.

It's difficult to keep a balance, fucking Geoff, and sucking him, and experiencing getting fucked himself. Each gets their moment of concentration and takes over. The way Ryan's fingers are splitting him open. How he barely has to move his hand because Geoff is riding him like a bucking bronco. The sloppy way he's suckling at the head of Geoff's dick, never getting further down than midshaft before an erratic movement has him pulling out. Gavin could be doing this better, but Jesus does a tingle go up his spine when he realizes he'll have opportunity to practice. This isn't just a wild night, held together by a game of gay chicken and maybe some bevs. Geoff and Ryan want to date him. This is the new fucking norm.

Gavin finds himself rubbing against Geoff's leg. He's going to have precome crusted in his leg hair, and for that Gavin is sorry, but not sorry enough to stop. Gavin is building to something here, an orgasm with so much luck and joy in it he can barely stand it. If that includes a DIY waxing of his boyfriend’s leg, when he goes to rip the dried jizz off, so be it.

Christ, the squelching push and pull in his ass. What Ryan’s doing might be killing him, or at least his ability to ever jerk off without assplay. And the taste of Geoff in his mouth. Technically speaking, salty and gross, but somehow sexy as fuck. It's nothing different than a few minutes ago, but it's all of a sudden too much. Overwhelming. Gavin moans, hides the noise in Geoff's cock, Geoff's pubes. It’s guttural, a sound he’s never made by himself. It’d be embarrassing, if he could focus on emotions rather than senses. The only real reaction he can make to his own noise is a shiver when Ryan’s reaction to it is to bite his shoulder. He doesn’t want a field of black bruises on him, not like Geoff, but Jesus _Christ_. Ryan licks where just bit, and presses his thumb against the rim of his asshole. Gavin dies a thousand deaths in that moment. That, and comes ropey white all over Geoff’s leg, and the bed. 

Geoff does Gavin the favour of not choking him to death as he’s fizzling out, then regaining consciousness. Downright mannerly of his boyfriend. Faced with such etiquette it's only right to make Geoff feel as good as he does. Gavin doubles down on the cocksucking, trying to breathe through his nose so he doesn't have to pull off. Except, it doesn’t take a genius to notice that's what Ryan has _not_ done.

“Aren't you gonna pull out?” Gavin asks, mouth briefly off of Geoff. 

“Nah. More fun to keep my fingers inside you ‘til you're ready to be fucked again.” Ryan didn't ask to do it, more told him, like the sequence of events was a fact, a foretold conclusion, but Gavin _wants_. If there will ever be a day Gavin tells either of them ‘no, thanks’ it certainly isn't today.

Gavin's hand turns a little under Geoff. He doesn't think anything of it, except maybe that the new angle is a bit of a relief on his wrist. Turns out there's drastic consequences to moving your hand while fingering a boy. At the next withdraw and push in, Geoff shrieks “oh my fucking Jesus!”. He clamps down on Gavin’s fingers, bucks up harshly enough that Gavin almost gets a dick in the eye, and comes all over his fucking face. 

There’s silence, for an eternity. Gavin is frozen over Geoff’s pelvis, spunk sliding into his eyebrow. Geoff is frozen, brain offline in the aftermath of his orgasm. Ryan is frozen, fingers still inside Gavin. And then it breaks, via Ryan bursting into laughter. He’s loud, overjoyed, and full of fucking mirth. Asshole.

“What the fuck was that?” Gavin demands. He's pretty sure facials are one of those niche sex acts you're supposed to ask permission first before doing.

Geoff misinterprets. Maybe on purpose, maybe not, Gavin can't tell. “That, my friends, was a prostate.”

Abruptly Gavin's concerns change. He’s not an idiot. He’s heard of the gland before, even thought that he was reaching it in his own adventures. He’s confident he was wrong about that, now, based on Geoff’s reaction. “You knew I could do that and you didn't tell me to do it right away?”

“Who wants to be a two bits and quitter?”

“Fucking follow up question.” Gavin twists his back so he can mostly look at Ryan. “Why aren't you doing it?”

“Like Geoff said. I like it long and drawn out. Also, worrying about your second orgasm while I haven't had my first? Fuck you.”

“Awww, is ickle babby Ryan feeling left out?”

“If you kill my boner I will fucking murder you.”

Geoff, the teen in question, giggles right in Ryan’s face. Fair turnabout, as far as Gavin is concerned, considering he’s already been laughed at in this bed. That said, Geoff does quit the baby talk, so it's alright. He doesn’t ruin the mood.

Even better for Ryan, he climbs off the bed to circle to the other side. Or, he tries, but Gavin knows there’s no room for Geoff laying the way he and Ryan are. And while he's shifting, he might as well change things up a little bit. With some reluctance Gavin pulls off of Ryan, shuddering a little at the emptiness. He rolls to the edge of the bed, and flips to face Ryan, trying to wipe his face on the sheet in the process. Ryan scoots to the middle of the mattress, leaving Geoff the room to spoon behind him.

Once everyone is situated, Gavin grabs Ryan's wrist and pulls his hand back to his asshole. The lube has dried a bit, but it's still wet enough to get Ryan in him. It's funny, how much he needs this to never end. He didn't think he was this much of a cockslut. You can be gay without being a Brian Kinney -or an Emmett Honeycutt, for that matter, though that never seemed as much of a risk- and Gavin always thought he wasn't. Evidently though, those are the judgemental thoughts of a virgin, because now that he's a Sex Having Gay, if Ryan ever stops fucking him he'll die.

Geoff's pressed tight along Ryan's back, spent dick probably nestled in the cleft of Ryan’s ass. Gavin can’t see it, but he can imagine. Geoff’s arm is curled over Ryan’s ribs, his fingers splayed out to clutch him tight, like a possession. Gavin doesn't think he could get any closer. He's like a punk rock queer octopus, which is such a ridiculous combination of words that it makes him huff out a laugh. But just so they don't get the wrong idea -it’s his first instance of snickering in bed, and he wants to be kind about it- Gavin leans in and kisses Ryan. Which, Jesus, is this the first kiss since they climbed in bed? They really are all impatient sluts.

Ryan shivers into the liplock, and for a moment Gavin is impressed with his own kissing technique. Then he feels the graze of something on his stomach and shifts to look. Geoff's spread fingers have turned into a claw. He's scratching Ryan, leaving marks in his wake, and Ryan's super into it. It's something that never would have occurred to Gavin. He wonders what else Geoff knows that he doesn't, what he witnessed to pick up on a kink of Ryan's. He wants to be in on everything from now on, see every last O-face. Unless, of course, he's the one obstructing it. His current plan is kiss Ryan until he comes. Granted the orgasm will be more spurred by Geoff's jerking him off, but who doesn't like a make out?

At this point in his life, Gavin has watched his fair share of porn. He’d like to think it’s given him a glimpse of the wide breadth of ways people enjoy getting off. However, just like he’s never heard a whimper like Geoff’s, Gavin’s never seen someone orgasm the way Ryan does. He curls into a fetal position, yanking his hands free of both of their occupied positions so he can cross them across his chest. Even his head tucks in. When he comes, it’s half on Geoff’s fingers, half on his own forearms.

Ryan stays in a ball as his breathing slows back to normal. And Gavin gets it, okay. Everyone’s orgasm hits differently. Nobody can actively control what their body does when it happens. He just wishes Ryan was still fingering him. Gavin’s hard, aching, needs to come a second time, but putting his own fingers up his ass seems like crossing some weird line. This isn’t a circle jerk, this is something like making love. Ending tonight by getting himself off just spoils it.

“Hey, Geoff. Would you...”

Geoff half sits so that he can see over Ryan. He sighs theatrically, then says “come here, you greedy fuck.”

So for the hundredth time this evening, Gavin switches location and stance. Rather than trying to get everyone to shift on the bed yet again, he decides to stand beside Geoff. The second he’s in front of his brunet boyfriend, Geoff reaches up and out to start jerking him off. Ryan’s flirted with his cock a few times tonight, over the jeans, and targeting his foreskin, but this is the first time someone’s really got their hand around it. 

It’s good. It’s fucking _good_. Geoff gives a mean handjob. And unlike Ryan, keeping the same technique with multiple people, Geoff’s changed it up. Where Gavin’s experience differs from Ryan’s -who has progressed to laying on his back, watching- is Geoff’s also cupping his balls. It’s not an area Gavin tends to hone in on. They’re too sensitive. It makes him jumpy. Right now the primate screaming danger in the back of his brain isn’t Gavin’s focus though. What is, is his asshole. Why? Because standing feels a little weird. Gavin thought the feeling getting up was just a random twinge, but now that he’s stationary he knows. He feels like this because he’s been stretched out. It’s mental that girls get to feel like this all the time. Even the most conservative people think procreation is good for women. Meanwhile he’s not supposed to have this? Screw that. If Geoff and Ryan don’t promise to keep finger fucking him, maybe even dick fucking, Gavin’s gonna buy himself a toy. He _deserves_ this stretch.

Actually, speaking of, “the balls thing is nice, but could you use your fingers like Ryan did?” A bit of a white lie. Maybe they’ll talk about it later. But Gavin is damned if he’ll say anything negative about goings on at this point.

“Yeah, be more like me,” Ryan jeers. For a guy supposedly solely concerned with Geoff’s self esteem, he sure is enjoying this.

“You’re such a fuckin’ prick. Why am I dating a prick-ass-prick like you?” Geoff mutters to himself, rhetorically. But he dutifully snakes a hand between Gavin’s legs to sink two fingers past his rim, so Gavin will take the harsh words.

Another difference between his two boyfriends; whereas Ryan was content with the slow burn, pushing him to the precipice and over with just the throbbing stretch, Geoff goes straight for his prostate. Gavin can tell Geoff’s looking for it because of his hand rapidly changing angles, and his veneer of concentration. Gavin can tell Geoff finds it because his knees start to buckle. 

“Shitting hell,” he says thickly. Yeah, to hell with a generic sex toy, dildo, whatever. He’s going to WikiHow how to build a DIY fucking machine and just always feel this pleasure.

Geoff’s grinning with confidence and he jabs his fingers up again. Gavin wobbles. “Come on, Gavvers. I can’t make you come if I can’t reach you.”

Damn Geoff and his superior argument. Gavin steels his legs, and vows to take this assfucking like a man.

It’s the best argument in the world, but it doesn’t matter. When Geoff picks up the pace and starts pounding him relentlessly, Gavin loses control and falls to his knees on the hardwood. What he’s not expecting is for Geoff to slip off the bed and join him on the floor. He gets back to a rhythm of fucking him and jerking him, putting on a fast and intense show as Ryan watches from the bed. With the little coherency Gavin has yet, he mingily thinks that he hopes Ryan’s enjoying himself.

Geoff looks at him until Gavin has no choice but to look back. Eye contact made, Geoff clearly announces “next time I’m gonna watch you shower, then stick my tongue up your ass.”

The filth is the last straw. Gavin comes a torrent, watery and translucent, the way it always gets when he has multiples during a marathon session. He braces himself, knuckles digging into the hardwood, the only thing keeping his slouched shoulder and loose spine up. 

By the time he’s caught his breath Geoff’s back on the bed. Manspreading, actually, which means his lube smeared ass is probably all over Gavin’s sheets. Oh well. It’s not like he wasn’t going to have to wash them anyway. Besides, it’s basically the least of his concerns. The _most_ of his concerns being what exactly happens next. It’s not like he can just resume their planned date. There’s no way he can bounce on a BMX bike for a few hours now, his ass would be the ignition point of spontaneous combustion.

“What do we do now?” Maybe it’s a needy question, but Gavin is basically new to this whole thing. The door is still locked, they could, like, spoon for a while? Unless Geoff and Ryan want to leave now. It’s totally plausible they came over to hook up after hearing the podcast, he has proof they discussed the recording prior to coming over.

“Well, I don’t know about you but I’m gonna get a wet face cloth and get some of this sticky lube off,” is Geoff’s response, completely bypassing any sort of answer that would give Gavin actual resolution to his question.

“I’m good, I think,” Ryan says.

With Ryan, the supposed best one at feelings, being utterly useless too, Gavin is forced to rephrase. “I meant, like, do you still want to hang out?”

“Do I want to hang out with my two boyfriends who I just had sex with? Yes, idiot. Pull out the Halo.”

“Get dressed, Gavin,” Ryan says, kinder than Geoff ever is.

That’s enough, Gavin thinks. They want to stay. They want to hang out. Everyone had an orgasm, and it didn’t make Ryan lose his mind and decide that he was only in it for the attention. In this moment, Gavin can believe that they can be together for a long time, and that hope all he needs. He can stand up and grab a pair of undies now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recipe, such as it is, can be found here: https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/homemade-ice-cream/
> 
> This chapter also features a cameo from the My Favourite Murder podcast.

Five: Good Mythical Morning

Gavin walks along the corridor until he comes across the door that they need. It's normally the cooking classroom, but now that it's 3:30, a sign has been posted on the door. A large, posterboard one. It says Gastro Club, but the CL is stylized so it looks like a backwards P. They're a club with fairly open membership. As long as you're willing to chip in your fair share to cover the ingredients, you too can learn how to do really weird shit with food.

“The question of the week, my friends, is will it ice cream,” Link is saying as they walk in. He’s standing at the head of the classroom, where the teacher’s desk is, clearly one of the driving forces of this club.

“Hello newcomers, I'm Rhett.”

“Yeah, we know,” Gavin answers for everyone. Rhett and Link ran for student administration last year. They even went social media hardcore about it, made a website and everything.

“Are you here because you're interested in the fine world of messing around with food?”

“Essentially yeah,” Ryan says.

He's not wrong, it's just not the whole truth. They’re also here because Geoff has a weird relationship with food, and Gavin and Ryan would both like him to enjoy himself more when it comes to sustenance. If that means dicking around in Gastro Club, so be it.

See, the thing is, Geoff's got the kind of extended family where things just happen. Nothing is ever planned. A situation like that has got some perks. For one, no one seems to care, or even notice that Geoff has friends over constantly, that a few evenings -and not always weekends- they even stay the night. That works out well, because Gavin has three siblings, and Ryan has attentive parents. No handmade fireworks there. Not that they should have trusted Jeremy's recipe anyway. But it’s also got some drawbacks. Chief for Geoff seems to be spending a fortune in fast food. He’s been a latchkey kid making his own meals for a decade now, and whether that’s a shitty sandwich or McDonalds, it makes Gavin sad. Geoff doesn’t seem to care, or ponder how things could be different; he is a teen of low expectations. Lucky for him, he’s got boyfriends willing to escort him to a cooking date.

“It’s quarter to. I think anyone who was coming is here,” a girl Gavin doesn’t know says.

“Thanks Jen! So, like I was saying, last week we all voted, and decided on ‘will it ice cream’. To start things off, in the fridge closest to the front of the room-”

“Where our station will be,” Rhett interrupts, tilting his head towards Link.

“-Is about a million and a half cans of sweetened condensed milk. You can take as many as you want. We’re not staying here ‘til dawn, but maybe you like doing it and want to make some at home without going to the grocery store. That’s fine.” Link shakes his head with a smile. He’s like a cute little puppy, like all the time. Not Gavin’s type at all, he likes a guy full of vinegar, but objectively adorable. “The deal is, each can you take, it’s ten bucks into the Will It? can.”

“Goes without saying if you try to rip us off you can’t come to the club anymore,” Rhett adds.

“Now, this is a super basic recipe. It can have as little as three ingredients. If everyone’s into it, we can talk about getting advanced, doing a different version. So everyone come buy a can, unless you’re doing sharesies with a friend. Which is fine, there’s no minimum limit here.”

Ryan, the sponsor of this date, goes up to the front and deposits the money for three cans. He comes back to them, and as he does Rhett instructs everyone to go to a kitchen station and put their can in the fridge. Luckily they get their own; the room has eight stations, and only about twenty club members.

“Now, everyone needs two cups of whipping cream. The cartons we got are four cup cartons, so find someone to share with.”

Gavin pours his half of the carton into a container, and gives Ryan the second half. Geoff splits his with a blonde guy in the next station.

“We don’t have enough mixers for everyone to go at once, unfortunately. Talk amongst your group about who’s going first, and whoever’s not? Put your whipping cream in the fridge. And the person who is going first? Dump your whipping cream and beat it on medium with the whisk attachment until it makes stiff peaks.”

Gavin looks over at Ryan, to find he’s looking back at him. By mutual and silent decision, Geoff gets to go first. Gavin scavenges through the accessories drawer for the whisks, while Ryan grabs a rubber spatula and starts rubbing his palms back and forth across it, making it twirl.

It doesn’t take very long for the whipping cream liquid to turn into a whipping cream solid, and then the next step is obvious; pour the condensed milk in. Ryan’s spatula comes in handy then, scraping the thick syrupy milk off the sides of the can. Geoff passes the spatula back to Ryan when he’s done, no doubt expecting Ryan to toss it into the sink, since he’s a lot closer. Instead Ryan pops the rubber into his mouth and sucks on the caramel coloured substance.

“Ew, dude. Jesus.”

“Don’t you slut shame me,” Ryan replies, words moderately muffled as he says them without removing the tool from his mouth. 

“Is it slut shaming if it’s not genitals in your mouth?” Gavin asks.

“I will shame whoever I wanna shame. And again, ew.” Geoff says.

“You’re gonna eat it when it’s mixed with one other ingredient, Link said!”

“Yeah, well, I love cake but I don’t eat flour by the handful, asshole!”

Gavin leans back to put his head against the cupboard where he’s sitting on the counter. He could watch these two assholes bicker for hours. It’s so fucking fun when they get salty. And they’re clearly enjoying themselves too, smiling even as Geoff yells at Ryan, and Ryan pokes Geoff in the chest with the tip of the spatula. This date was a great idea.

“Y’all got your condensed milk-whipping cream mix in stiff peaks?” Link shouts, breaking the scene, and gathering the attention of everyone in the club. There’s a general call back of agreeal, which spurs Link to continue. “Last step then; do what you want!”

Rhett takes over. “The base you have in front of you makes three pints. I suggest you divide it into three containers. A lot of you brought a bunch of containers with you. For anyone here for the first time, A- you’re welcome to come get a handful from our trusty Leftovers Box, as long as you wash and return them. B- please consider joining our Discord group, where we chat about supplies and ideas for each week’s meeting.”

“If you divide it, or if you know what you want to make, and want to eat a lot of it, either way, it’s that time now,” Link says. He’s somewhat hard to parse, but Gavin picks it up. “Grab whatever you want from the pantry, we have a deal with the teacher. And if you’re struggling for ideas, call me or Rhett over, we’ll help you brainstorm.”

With that, the two boys turn back to their own station, prompting everyone in the room to face their own. Geoff stares at his big bowl of stiff mixture, ponderously. “What the dicks do I want to make?”

“I dunno, man,” Ryan starts, “But get a spoon and start scooping into a few containers, because I wanna mix my own, so you need to get the fuck out of the way.”

Gavin snorts. No one should ever get between Ryan and his food. Gavin’s seen him eat a full dozen doughnuts over the course of a single day. He’s also witnessed him jonesing for popcorn at Trevor’s house. Since that fuck doesn’t own a microwave, Ryan brainstormed until he figured out that ripping open a packet of microwave popcorn and shoving it into a wafflemaker would pop approximately a third of the package, as long as someone was willing to catch the popped kernels while the super heated oil spat at them. 

“Fine, you asshole,” Geoff grumbles. Gavin darts to the front of the room, where Rhett and Link have left a huge moving box full of recycled food containers. He grabs a whole armful, certain that Ryan and himself are both also going to need three. Why make a lot of one when you can make a little of many?

The teamwork continues when he goes back to their station. He and Ryan work together to spoon some of the stiff mixture into three different containers, as Geoff joins a handful of other teens in the cooking class pantry. It reminds Gavin of that Alton Brown sabotage based cooking show, everyone scampering around with a tray because they have sixty seconds to get their ingredients and get out before the door locks. Substitute a locked door with other people grabbing the ingredient _you_ want, and it’s an exact match.

That said, when Geoff comes back with about twenty things, Gavin feels like they’ll all be covered. Unless he’s planning kitchen sink ice cream. That seems more Ryan’s speed than Geoff’s though.

As Geoff is dicing some bananas, loudly declaring his plan for banana chocolate chip ice cream, Gavin’s first idea comes to him in a flash. In his backpack are some thumbprint cookies he didn’t eat at lunch time because he’d been busy having a text-war with Lindsay on Michael’s behalf, as his boi’d been occupied ransacking some tavern. They’re the kind with strawberry cinnamon jam from his neighbour, and they couldn’t be more top. He’d wanted to save them until he could properly savour them. Well, that time is now. What better ice cream than ice cream with chunks of cookie and jam? Maybe even some diced strawberries, if the pantry has them.

The only issue is Gavin’s not sure how he wants to attempt this. The first thing that comes to mind is a food processor. It’s one of a hundred tools in the lower cupboards of this station. Say anything about this school you want, Gavin’s not in love, but it does manage to fund other things than the football team. His parents were careful about that when enrolling him. Unfortunately, if he does break out the food processor the jam will blend too, and it’ll turn into a ball of mash, like a cake pop. A mortar and pestle is more likely to keep things separate, but it seems unlikely to be stored under the sink.

Working side by side by side with his boyfriends, Ryan insisting he help him figure out how to make pancake flavoured ice cream, Geoff pouring a truly choke-worthy amount of toffee bits directly into his mouth, Gavin couldn’t be having a better time. Beyond opening the world of non-fast food to Geoff, this is honestly just a fun date. Better than Gavin would have guessed. Ryan keeps _laughing_ , a sound that’ll never get old. And Geoff is fidgeting in a distinctly happy way, because yes, Gavin’s spent enough time around the guy to know the difference between anxiety jittering and happy squirming.

The way he's endlessly shifting is certainly innocent. Still, Gavin can't help but imagine under Geoff's oversized hoodie and jeans he's wearing something kinky. Nipple clamps with a chain connecting them. A vibrating butt plug, remote on a keychain attached to a zipper pull on his backpack, where crowds would randomly press it. Or a corset. Yeah, Geoff would look hot as shit constricted in a corset. 

It'd be as manly as possible, all silver rivets and black leather. It would lace as tight as he could get it. That would be the kink of it for Geoff; the restriction. The difficulty breathing. But then they'd get a hold of him, wouldn’t they? Lovely Ryan, with his occasional modeling and the Lush job he definitely got for being pretty. And then himself, knowing how to enjoy being awash in sensations. Between the two of them they'd get Geoff's legs shaved and the silkiest pair of pantyhose on. Or maybe one of those pretty fishnets Lindsay showed him on tumblr, the ones with beads and sequins embellished on. They'd disappear into black boxer briefs, skin tight spandex perfectly sculpting Geoff’s ass. And then on top, Ryan would have added some dark plum to his pouty lips. Maybe some dark eyeliner, maybe some eyebrow shit. He'd be this sexy dark god of a man.

“I say we put another ten bucks down and make some more. What do you two think?”

Gavin snaps out of it, thanks to Ryan’s direct question. It’s too late though, the daydream has already done its damage. He’s absolutely turned on. He's half hard, in fact, and Geoff is only a few feet away, but they're surrounded by other people. If Gavin makes this move he's outed them.

But isn't it worth it to get what he wants? If being out is the price of being intimate with the guy he really really likes -maybe loves, that word is still complicated, but maybe- isn’t that a price worth paying?

Before he can think it about too much Gavin takes those few steps forward and grabs Geoff by the pouch of his hoodie. He pulls his boyfriend closer. There's a moment, maybe two, when Geoff or Ryan could abort this. Either they don't want to, or they don't notice -and Gavin wants to believe it's the first- but those moments pass without comment and Gavin's mouth is on Geoff's. He tastes like honey. He must have snuck a fingerful at some point. 

Gavin can feel the room change as everyone starts to notice. Conversation dies off. Geoff, the one facing most of the students as Gavin faces the cupboard, he tenses. And, embarrassingly, Gavin’s dick gets harder. He's so into public shit, whether it's watching or performing. He's jerked off a dozen times about inviting Michael to watch. Acquaintances and strangers have a different emotional resonance but it's still filthily good for him.

“Oh,” Link says, breaking the silence. 

“You two together?” Rhett asks.

Gavin could go the easy route, say yes. But if he does he denies an important part of his relationship. He's not sure he'd even work with Geoff without Ryan. Ryan balances them out and stops some of the truly stupid ideas. Gavin twists to the left to first look at Ryan, then keeps going to face the club. “We three are together.” 

Ryan's arms cross over his chest, Gavin can see it in his peripheral. Geoff's knuckles touch his before his fingers weave in and they're holding hands. It doesn’t take words to proclaim anxiety.

“Huh,” Link says.

Gavin waits for more, from any of the almost twenty people in the room, but nothing comes. Ryan's arms droop to his sides, and Gavin knows how he feels. It's weird to not be facing a negative reaction. He thought he’d get one. He thought he’d get hundred of negative reactions and rise above them, be better than them, not that there wouldn't be anything to rise above. 

“Are you-” Gavin starts. He's thinking about how to finish the sentence, maybe with _kidding me_ but Rhett interrupts.

“No, of course we're not going to tell.”

“Uh,” Geoff says. 

“You can trust us,” Link continues this bizaare train of conversation. “We're dating too.”

“All twenty of you?” Gavin knows this group has been together for four years, but could friendship really lead to a group relationship?

“No silly.” Rhett shakes his head. “Link and I are that way too. We only found each other, but it's cool that there's three gay people in your grade.”

Gavin finds himself suddenly wondering where exactly these two learned sex ed. Are they seriously implying that all queer people just come together, like a handful of magnets? That if Gavin happened to have five queer friends he’d be in a sixsome? Wow.

“You can trust us that we won't tell anyone. We know how important it is.”

“Great,” Ryan says flatly. 

“Anyway, who's going to be the first to make a spicy ice cream?” Rhett points to a blonde guy with glasses, then a girl in a beanie. “You don't want to overspice, but you don't want to miss no kick neither.”

“Ahh, what the heck. Going for some cayenne!” The girl’s exclamation is met with a handful of cheers, and even a few claps.

Gavin doesn't get it. He really, seriously does not get it. Red powder gets more of an outburst than polyamory? What on god’s fucking Earth. But at this point the best course of action is probably just grabbing a spoonful of chocolate chips and adding them into his cocoa powder laced ice cream. That’s what he’s here for, after all.

With the type of foresight that will get him through two degrees in University, Ryan realises another bowl of whipped cream in that they have no way of taking their snacks home without them melting. He scoops Geoff’s keys and makes the few minute drive to the nearest convenience store for a bag of ice. He comes back with an extremely overpriced bag of Fruity Pebbles as well, and that’s how Gavin knows Ryan’s not going to hold a grudge about the outing thing. Geoff though, Geoff might want to have words later.

Sure enough, his cuddly little degenerate boyfriend barely waits until they’re out of the Gastro Club to lay in to him. Ryan’s got all his school stuff in the store’s plastic bag, and has possibly ruined his duffle bag by filling it with ice and jamming fifteen containers of semi-frozen ice cream in it. Gavin is physically occupied with adjusting his grip on the grocery bag so the strained handles cut into his palm a little less, but decides to verbally engage everyone. “So in there I tried to push us to the next level. Do-”

“Yeah, by outing us, you giant turd,” Geoff screeches.

“Look. Nobody told me no in there.”

“That would have made things worse!”

Gavin's tone changes as he faces Geoff's sudden aggression. The fuck if he won’t stand up for himself. “You're telling me you didn't want to kiss?”

“You can't say you wanted to become G-rated, family friendly Rhett and Link. Who knows how long they’ve been dating, and no one knew? Weird. Four years, potentially, and not as much as a public handhold? Jesus christ.”

Gavin wasn’t expecting Ryan to side with him, but he’ll happily take the ally. It gives him a little more leverage to continue this conversation without everyone shooting him down. “And is it just me, or was that really-”

“Unsatisfying?”

“Anticlimactic?” Geoff offers, begrudgingly. Even annoyed at Gavin for executing that kiss without talking it over first, he still sees that it was weird.

“Yeah, that.” It's not like Gavin wanted confetti cannons and fireworks, for Rhett and Link to go jazz hands marching down the hall playing... what's that gay 70's disco song? Anyway, he didn't wanted to be outed with some extreme fanfare, but some sort of hint of rumor bubbling would have been nice. Instead they've gotten the exact opposite.

“Well, what are we supposed to do now? Because that didn't work for any of our purposes.”

“Like I was saying before you started to throw a bloody strop, do you want to try again out in this hallway? Half the kids in the school are exiting their clubs about now.” There's no set time any club or team has to be out of the school, but who wants to stay ‘til dinner when there's video games to be had? If they’re striving for visible, while still being able to run away if necessary, there’s really no better time than now.

“You already kissed me, fucknut. Give him a go.” Geoff says, throwing a directing gesture towards Ryan. Ryan takes a step towards him, so Gavin knows he’s into the idea. 

Gavin leans up and into Ryan. He tastes like Diet Coke when Gavin sweeps his tongue into his mouth. After all those ice cream flavours, he _still_ tastes like Coke. It’s almost funny. His boyfriend is an addict, there’s no question about that. Gavin’s hardly going to pull away to complain though. Not when they’ve got a plan.

And not when both his boyfriends are so into it, either. Within a few seconds of their kiss, Geoff has crowded in. He’s got a hand on Gavin’s ass, and Gavin would guess he’s touching Ryan somewhere too. Geoff’s face is so close to Gavin he can smell the raspberry ice cream on his breath. Determining that Ryan’s into this is even easier, given the way he’s sucking on his lip.

“Boys, you're going to need to stop.”

Gavin immediately recoils. Any student and he could have handled it, but that was definitely Mr Tepieth. Gavin doesn’t quite have the fortitude to keep making out in front of the principal. 

“Why? Because we're gay in the middle of Texas?”

Geoff’s accusation is loud enough that it attracts the attention of a few teens further down the hall. Gavin only recognises two, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, but from that can extrapolate it’s probably the True Crime club. Gavin can’t say for certain how gossipy any of them are, but he thinks it’s safe to presume that it’s begun.

Maybe due to the audience, maybe just because he hates cute punk asshole teenagers, Principal Tepieth meets Geoff’s bluster with a stern declaration of the rules. “We make it pretty clear each new semester’s assembly that PDA is to happen off school grounds. That goes for any mix of genders, or, or _multiples_ , Mr Ramsey.” 

“Uh huh,” Geoff says in a tone that says he certainly, one hundred percent, definitely believes Principal Tepieth.

“Consider this a friendly warning. Next time you turn my hallways into a softcore porn it'll be a detention.”

Gavin can taste the rebellion in the air. He takes another step back and tries to look contrite. He wants no part of his parents being informed of a detention. Geoff, of course, does not have the same reservation. Thank you, Geoff’s loving but erratic parents. He all but stares at Mr Tepieth before grabbing Ryan by the wrist and pulling him in for a kiss. At least he had the respect to not do it to him. Ryan’s at least fifty percent down, Geoff had to know Gavin’d be zero.

“Excellent listening comprehension, I see. Do I even have to say report to room 126 after school tomorrow?”

Knowing that he’s the only one with the ability to not escalate this even more, Gavin mumbles some sort of assent. It’s not the words that matter, it’s the submissive tone. That’s usually all authorities care about. Sure enough, Principal Tepieth fucks off.

Geoff grins the defiant snarl Gavin’s seen a few times. “Showed that motherfucker.”

“You sure did, champ.” Gavin can pluck Ryan’s scorn off the vine, it’s so ripe.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“How about because you had to stick it to the man, we won’t have time to fool around before I gotta go to work. So who really lost?”

Gavin sighs. Both his lovely idiots are missing the point. “Both of you stop being mingepots. That was a good time, for one. And we accomplished our goal. Look at the people staring at us.”

There’s at least a dozen people further down the hall. Maybe they haven’t moved in order to not catch the principal’s attention, like a rabbit avoiding the gaze of a hawk. Or maybe the self-centred world he tends to live in is true, and they all just wanted to watch the show. Whatever the initial motives, there’s no way it’s not getting around now. Gavin would put money on at least five of his friends texting him before dinner to ask about his gay outburst. 

Ryan nods his head in concession. “Certainly aren’t Disney-audience safe gays now.”

“Next time I see that prick I’m going to blow you,” Geoff threatens.

“No you’re not.”

“Gonna get right on my knees on the dirty linoleum and suck your dick,” he continues.

“No, Geoffry!”

Geoff continues his ultra-gay threats unabated, and all Gavin can do is laugh. He definitely doesn’t want to get suspended for a public blowie, but he’s happy about how quickly they’ve all swung to being out and proud. Who could have guessed at the beginning of the school year where they’d be by October first? At this rate, they’ll be married by Halloween.


End file.
